Inconvenient baby killed for mother’s right to choose, but gets a bad poem in its honor

For most of the time since Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton were decided, even pro-abort liberals were of the opinion that abortion was a last resort. This culminated in Clinton’s famous promise to keep abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” That consensus is evaporating as pro-life forces are winning significant victories within the corrupt legal structure laid out in Roe v. Wade. With each victory, the pro-abort side becomes more strident and ghoulish.

The unborn baby’s heart was “quieted” by her doctor, and their baby was gone. She was delivered by cesarean section in spring 1997, the memoir says.

Davis wrote that she and her then-husband, Jeff, spent time with Tate the next day and had her baptized. They cried, took photographs and said their good-byes, she wrote, and Tate’s lifeless body was taken away the following day.

As I noted, the fact that they named the baby and had it baptized after death betrays an acknowledgement that this was not a mere medical procedure. At least Davis shows some degree of humanity. That isn’t always the case as abortion has ceased being portrayed as a tragic but necessary medical procedure and become some sort of sacrament of the pro-abort movement.

One of the most horrific accounts of abortion appeared in the New York Times magazine a decade ago. The informant in the story tells of discovering, to her dismay, that she was pregnant with triplets:

Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn’t want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ”Shouldn’t we consider having triplets?” And I had this adverse reaction: ”This is why they say it’s the woman’s choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That’s easy for you to say, but I’d have to give up my life.” Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn’t be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It’s not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I’m going to have to move to Staten Island. I’ll never leave my house because I’ll have to care for these children. I’ll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don’t think that deep down I was ever considering it.

Having found the thought of shopping at Costco overwhelming, she elected to kill two of the three babies.

“I am not ashamed. I am not ashamed. I’m so sick of keeping these words contained. I am not ashamed.”

In the slam poem “I Think She Was A She,” spoken word poet and performance artist Leyla Josephine recounts the abortion she had as a teenager and the cultural shame she’s been constantly confronted with ever since.

Josephine is unapologetic as she describes why she had an abortion and how it was truly the right decision for her. “I would’ve supported her right to choose. To choose a life for herself, a path for herself. I would’ve died for that right like she died for mine. I’m sorry, but you came at the wrong time,” the Glasgow native proclaims.

When one reads the transcript, or views the video, one does get the feeling of an unconvincing rationalization of evil. In a way, this is more plaintive than the boastful piece about offing two of three triplets. To that extent maybe “Leyla Josephine” is suffering from a form of PTSD associated with abortion. On the other hand, sane people have the self awareness to realize when they’ve done something wrong and resolve to never do it again. Our “spoken word poet” instead glorifies killing someone she recognizes as a human being for no greater cause than bearing the child and putting it up of adoption would have required more effort and planning than getting pregnant in the first place:

I would have made sure that we had a space on the wall to measure her height as she grew.

This week we’re taking a moment to honor Leyla Josephine. Why? Because she has courageously stood up and fought for women’s rights; for our right to birth control, for our right to choose, for our right to own our bodies, for our right to our lives.

In the slam poem “I Think She Was A She,” Leyla, a spoken word poet and performance artist recounts the abortion she had as a teenager and the weighty burden of shame her society, a society so similar to our own, has placed upon her shoulders ever since. From the people she encounters in her everyday life to the media and politicians she doesn’t even know, Leyla has, when it comes to her choice, only ever experienced negativity, judgement and condemnation. In fact we’re sure some of you are judging her right now, judging our decision to make her Girl of the Week but you know what? Not every situation is so black and white.

Which is why it’s always wonderful when people come forward with a narrative that humanizes the issue — when Wendy Davis talks about her decision to terminate a pregnancy or when a woman films her own abortion to show how un-horrific it is. Because the truth is that this is a human issue, about human people making a difficult choice, whatever the choice may be, and demonizing them or their decisions, ignoring the humanness of it all, does no one any good.

What is notable about both Wendy Davis and Leyla Josephine is that both acknowledge that a child was killed, yet both are not only unrepentant but demanding of public support if not acclamation. This is the political action of a losing argument. They have lost the argument over the baby’s humanity and the immorality of the act and now are trying to silence pro-life voices by making this decision beyond criticism.

Abortion is a horrible practice that has no place in a civilized country. The only saving grace of personal testimonies like those of Davis and Leyla Josephine is to demonstrate the horror of murdering a helpless child and make us ask how we, as a society, could have raised young women who could do so.